20" iMac, 10.5.8

In the past few weeks I've noticed that after saving a file and going back to its Finder window, the modified date has not changed. Tried closing & reopening the window and still no new date. Then later on, say the next day, I'll see that it has the correct modified date & time.

What's up? Doomed?

Does it even work? I tried it on a scanned document and nothing happened. Where does the "text" go?

I'm looking into non-traditional technologies of getting internet access in my home and by traditional I mean the usual cable or DSL hookup with a local telecom. I just don't want to deal with those pricks and I honestly do not use the internet at home enough to justify spending $50+ a month. I don't have a TV and have no interest in their package deals.

Is anyone here using one of those USB hot spot things? What do you pay and do you have a lot of downtime/dropped signal? I've heard they are reliable in metro areas. Is there a pay-as-you-go deal?  Better off just going to a library or coffeeshop a couple times a week with a laptop.

Suggestions?

This has been discussed before but it's time for a fresh thread. Had a lengthy meeting with my company's owner today and he wants to try some new avenues of getting the word out on all the services we offer. It seems as if most of our existing customer base isn't aware of all we offer (eg: "Oh, I didn't know you guys did that" when a CSR mentions our ability to make banners & signage)

The dreaded f-word came up in the meeting and I managed to discourage that idea, for now. I mentioned LinkedIn and will check it out - anyone using it at their company and has it provided any benefit whatsoever? Are there any other online tools out there that have helped to promote your company?

We are going to start doing email blasts once a month to existing customers. Thinking about targeting certain groups (eg: medical offices) and sending out direct mail to try to get them to our site to sign up for monthly email updates.

We print apparel now so I suggested making some very unique & flashy company promo shirts for us to wear to special events or whatever. Kind of like walking billboards.

How is your company acquiring new customers? Does your website offer anything special that your customers seem to use & like? (eg: web to print)

Are we really all doomed?

Now accepting recommendations. I'm looking for the smallest available external USB drive, minimum 300Gb but preferably 500Gb. Something durable (rubber enclosure) and waterproof would be awesome if such a thing exists.

I heard that HD prices have currently risen due to flooding in SE Asia, is this true? (hence my interest in waterproof...j/k)  Just looking for something small I can grab & go in case of a crisis situation on the homefront.

We're bringing a second body into prepress and I suggested to the bosses that we give applicants a skills test on their second interview. I know every shop is different, but in general what sort of things should I put together?

If anyone here has put together a skills test, what did you include?

Thx.  :kiss:

Apple now offering free recycling and Gift Cards for old Windows PCs


Discuss.

One of our CSRs has had an issue that started about a week ago. When she prints an email from Thunderbird to our copy machine a bunch of text comes out garbled (see sample attached). Sometimes it's just the email header text, sometimes it's the whole thing including the body of the email. On screen it displays fine and the same email forwarded to another PC and printed to the same copier prints out fine.

So the issue lies with this one PC and/or Thunderbird. How can I fix it?

This has been discussed before but I want to get some info on maintaining humidity in prepress. I'm located in high desert in the Southwest US. It's dry here, average outdoor humidity is prolly around 25%. The building is climate controlled, but it's dry. We've recently brought in new equipment and each vendor has specifically pushed the concept of installing humidifiers to keep it around 45% or so.

Would like to hear what others are using and what sort of floor models to look at to maintain a room about 300sf.

Got a client PSD set up in CMYK, had to convert to spot blue and black for press. Selected all the objects to print in spot blue and filled them in a spot channel, then converted file to grayscale which retained the spot channel, saved as PSD.

When placed in InDesign and printed to copier for in house proofing, all the black in the PSD magically dropped out. Same thing happened with a Photoshop EPS. Exported a PDF from Indy and viewed seps in Acrobat, but black would drop out when printing. Finally able to print a TIFF and have both colors print.

Made screen proof PDF (from Indy w/ placed TIFF) for customer to review and on their end the black dropped out of the PDF until they scrolled/zoomed down the page, then it magically appeared. WTF? I ended up just placing a JPG in Indy to create a screen proof for custy to look at.

I hardly ever have to deal with spot colors in Photoshop. What's the best way to do it?

We got an image of a house with fencing in front of it that the customer wanted removed. "Can your artist just Photoshop it?"  :laugh: Why, yes, I can - but I estimated it would take me about 30-40 minutes (and it did, I was off by 5 minutes). I didn't have that awesome *Remove Ugly Fence* plugin installed so I cloned out each and every bit. I was about 2/3 done when our CSR told me to stop because the customer had to get a PO for the additional art time that wasn't on the original job ticket. I just chuckled looking at, imagining if it went to press like that and ending up on Photoshop disasters.







Feel free to post your edited Photoshop masterpieces here so we can all gaze upon the magic of the clone tool.

Does anyone do this at their shop or involved in prepping files for it? We're bringing in some new equipment to print on fabric (tshirts, bags, etc). I'm kinda excited about it even though it's another coffin nail for our offset department.

I found a good screen printing forum I'm going to check out. If anyone knows of any good online references please share.

Our shop just got a Roland wide format printer/plotter. Lots of trial & error going on until I get used to the RIP, printer, and various substrates.

First job is magnetic vehicle signs, printing on vinyl, laminating, then adhering to magnetic material. We are trying to match the gray of the customer's trucks (he actually picked a CMYK swatch that was closest to truck color) and under inside lighting I'm getting a good match. But once outside the entire background gray takes on a greenish hue and looks awful on his truck. The greenish effect gets even worse under laminate and we have tried a sheet lam and spray lam with ugly results.

I've output no less than 18 swatch tests, CMYK builds & grayscale, and everything just takes on a greenish hue out in the sun.

Any ideas?

I have an Indy layout w/ a placed CMYK TIFF set to 65% opacity. When I export PDF from Indy it kicks the image off the page. When I Postscript/Distill it's just fine.

What's the deal? See dumps.

I need to get a new production PC. It's going to be used primarily to run a wide format printer RIP. Every component is sorely outdated so I figure it's better to just buy a whole new box. A new monitor is needed, flat panel preferred.

Any suggestions on minimum desirable specs and where to look is greatly appreciated.

Interesting to point out an increasing change in the content of posts here as compared to five years ago. I see more and more discussion about things like web development, variable data, barcodes, and such. When I joined PPF in 2005 it was because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't strip film straight onto a flat and it was determined that my light table was likely not 100% square (I believe it was David who made such a suggestion). Now I wrangle with hacking code and trying to avoid Facebook integration as much as possible.

So little of the work I (we) do now is hands-on and is almost exclusively computer based. Less and less of it actually involves prepress & printing. I and others here are now actively involved in developing websites & related crap because there's just less work to do in prepress.

Is anyone considering leaving the trade due to the shift in technology? I know several of us are worried about job loss due to the same shift and the coming death of printing as more things are moved to the internet.

It will be interesting to see who amongst us now is still doing "this" five years from now (if this site is still up, of course) 

I'm in the market to replace my $3 thrift store computer speakers, maybe take a step up. What are you using and why do you like them? I'm looking for something fairly basic for home use - good enough to kick out some bass when Pantera pops up on iTunes and to watch movies so I can actually hear the sound instead of struggling to listening. I'm no audiophile, anything under $50 will suit me just fine. Would prefer something that powers off the computer (via USB) rather than have yet another power cord running to the power strip).

Man, I'm getting worse and worse. End is probably near or something.

How do I make a copy of a Mac install disk? I just tried making a disk image with Toast and it came out 7.5G so I can't burn it to DVD.

Please advise, then mock me.

I get these "hidden" files when I copy files from Mac to Windows. It's getting annoying because they display in one of the windows in my Creo RIP even though Windows folder options is set to hide files like this.

Is there any way to make this not happen?

Two color job with placed spot graphics. In Ink Manager 'spot to process' is grayed out. See dump.

?